1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a portable telephone having a liquid crystal display device installed therein to display characters and/or images.
2. Background Art
Recently, portable telephones have been made smaller and smaller in size to be more convenient to carry. On the other hand, supplementary functions have been added to the normal ones of each portable telephone serving as a terminal output equipment for receiving information through INTERNET and/or from the like data source. Thus, larger liquid crystal devices are required to indicate thereon the information or data of such a larger volume. One of the proposals that has been made to meet this requirement is disclosed in the Japanese Patent Early Publication Gazette No. 11-249596. According to this proposal, a lid is attached to the first or ordinary liquid crystal display of a telephone body so as to be opened and closed relative thereto. In this case, a second liquid crystal display is formed in the inner face of such a lid such that when the lid is opened during use of this telephone the first and second display swill serve as portions of an integrated multi-display device.
It is however to be noted that such a prior proposal is not necessarily convenient to use. This is because the lid remains closed to hide the first display built in the telephone body, unless or until intentionally opened to allow an operator or user to look at the display in normal use of the portable telephone. It also is a problem that such an additional second liquid crystal display is not indispensable but rather useless to normal and ordinary operation of this telephone.
A primary object of the present invention made to resolve the drawbacks of the prior art is therefore to provide a portable telephone with a second liquid crystal display in addition to a first or ordinary liquid crystal display built in the telephone, such that the first display can play its normal role as it is and as usual. The second display that has been folded back to rear of the telephone body has to be reversed forwards so that the first and second displays form an extended display for indicating the information of a large capacity received through INTERNET or the like.